28 Responses to Deadzone Faction Deck: Rebels

I listened to this. I quite like some of Billy’s stuff, but for this it had to be the added scratchy authenticity of a 1933 recording.

Of course, the Rebels aren’t really communist at all. Well, a few of them might be. They are, however, firmly anti-Corporation, and as the Corporation stands firmly for capitalism and commerce it seemed a natural place to go.

I’d have used anarchists stuff, but they’re too disorganised to have an anthem 😉

Oh, there’s at least “A las barricadas”, a spanish civil war song of the anarchist organisations (aye, sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it isn’t.) back then. Granted that’s more anti-fascist than anti-capitalist, and maybe not easily recognised, but still, there it is!
Some other alternatives would include the Italian partisan song “Bella Ciao” or Leonard Cohen’s or Noir Desir’s version of “the Partisan”, or rather some punk cover thereof (I recommend the one by Red Union).

Smart***ing aside, I see Rebels spending their points on at least a Zee or 2 just for the Scour VPs on the missions, but I guess their flexible human troopers ‘d do well too. Guess we’ll see some passes in play: Get stuff with a swift trooper (a Yndij) and run off to pass the goods to a Zee who can carry 3 of them. But then the Rebs seems to have some spare Man/Alienpower with their cheap cost.

Speaking of which:
Can survey drones pick up items?
If the Yndij Hunters are agile, shouldn’t the Yndij Sarge also be agile?

Well, the reason I was thinking about using Zee’s as item porters to score “Scour” VPs was because I assumed that leaving the board this way wouldn’t allow your troops to return, so better to send off a 3pt Zee with 3 items than a 6pt Yindij or 4pt human per item. Thanks for clarifying that in your entry about missions!
Also, I ‘ve to say I like the mission names too, they capture the rebels’ background rather well, and so do the Marauders’, the Enforcers,.. all of then actually!

A point I noticed reading through the missions: ‘Viva la revolution!’ has all the goals that ‘Save what you can’ has, but also points for killing things- which would surely make it much easier to achieve.
Perhaps this has something to do with the DEP thingy at the bottom of the card?

Yeah some variation in difficulty is fair enough, but I think having all of those goals just makes it a walk in the park.

Removing survive sounds good, it doesn’t really fit the revolution theme for the mission anyway (in my opinion.) To achieve scour on the other hand would mean having to dedicate troops to running off with loot rather than killing things, which makes it more of a tactical decision so not as easy.

Is the corporation really capitalist? Or is it more of a totalitarian corporate state? I guess it’s a distinction without a difference for many, but capitalism is supposed to be about free enterprise and competition. I don’t get the feeling much is free about the Corporation. I’ll see if I can’t dig you up an anarchist anthem. The anarcho-syndicalists of the Spanish Civil War and the Russian Civil War no doubt had something…

I think the Corporation is as much a free market economy as we live in here in the western “democracies”. That is to say, one in name only. What their propaganda says, and what is the reality, is no more similar than has been the case throughout history. pick any time and place you like – they’ve never matched.

I’ve always thought of The Corporation as the dystopian end-game of free market capitalism. Corporations get bigger and bigger, the competition is either bought out or goes bust. There are still lots of brand names and subsidiary companies to give the illusion of competition and choice but ultimately ownership it confined to a smaller and smaller number of mega-corporations. Eventually you might be left with just two or three which owns and controls (at least on paper) every company, institution and government in human society. Then the uber-powerful owners of these organisations sign a merger, consolidating their boards of directors into a Council of Seven….

“Crush the rebel scum? A bit drastic, isn’t it? Corporation Central recommends a different wording, at least in public, commander!”
Your troops are to pacify outbreaks of spontaneous violence, dispersing rioters and opportunistic looters, who try to exploit an already tumultous situation. The Enforcers have been deployed to assist the local management in keeping up corporate order and ensuing peace and prosperity for all. Things will and shall return to normal shortly. Dismissed!”

rebles seemed to be the faction that was dominating our play group this last week, people were playing with lots of humans, a grogan or two and a pair of drones, they usually supressed every enemy unit with their numerical superiority (humans do BA with 5 dice if aiming and with drone) and then just went for a walk and completed their objectives… this strategy prevented other players from playing high cost units trying to counter this. Now with the new courage cards this strategy is still viable but not broken as it used to.
zees are seeing lot of play due to scavenging missions, also the yndij and kraaw have seen an increase in play due to missions. Grogan desolator seems to be MVP, and nearly every player is playing at least one, onslaught cannon sees also play, but sometines is let over for humans as having a high miniature count helps a lot to this faction.
finally teraton is sadly seeing no play, the charismatic tortoise is no rival for blaine, so rebel players prefer the merc to the tortoise, even more considered the fact that blaine wrecks plague as they have no consistent way to deal with him.

I should also point out that anarchism doesn’t mean an absense of organisation, just an absence of government or hierarchy (although admittedly this is a very common misconception, as political philosophy isn’t something that’s widely taught). To achieve stuff as a group you always need to organise yourself, but from an anarchist viewpoint you don’t need permanent power structures, you just organise things democratically as and when a situation requires it.

I’d imagine the Rebels operate in a similar manner, commanders fulfill a leadership role, but it might not be a permanent ‘rank’ (i.e. they might be elected by their unit at the start of a campaign then relinquish it at the end, and the unit might even have a right of recall if the commander sucks at his/her job).

Just reredading the cards (v4), and I just realized that the “Viva la revolution !” objective give the exact same points as “Save what you can” *plus* point for killing models worth 7+, so “Viva la revolution !” looks that it is strictly superior to “Save what you can”.

Did I miss something ? If not, is it normal to have some objectives strictly better than others ?